The present invention relates in general to machinery, such as printing presses, which utilize one or more rollers, such as form rollers, inking rollers and transfer rollers as known in the art of lithographic printing. More specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus for imparting axial oscillations to a roller or similar device.
Such rollers as found in the prior art typically have a cylindrical outer core which is rotatable about a stationary shaft. It is to be understood that the shaft is stationary relative to the outer core of the roller. Depending upon the application it can be envisioned that the outer core is actually held stationary in reference to a frame while it is the shaft that rotates, which is equivalent to a rotation of the outer core relative to the shaft. In the art of printing presses different apparatus are known which provide endwise or axial vibration to particular rollers in the press. These prior art devices for imparting axial oscillation are typically complex in construction and therefore are expensive. Also, they cannot easily be incorporated into an existing roller on a printing press which previously had no oscillation characteristics
The present invention overcomes these drawbacks of the prior art and provides an improved oscillator apparatus for use in printing presses as well as other types of machinery.